Iraq exit plan is part of an overall strategy for a sustainable campaign against world terrorism
San Diego, CaliforniaEchoing a popular opinion among both conservatives and liberals, Peter Bergen writing the New York Times (What Osama Wants, October 26, 2006) opined:
“Another problem with a total American withdrawal is that it would fit all too neatly into Osama bin Laden’s master narrative about American foreign policy. His theme is that America is a paper tiger that cannot tolerate body bags coming home; to back it up, he cites President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 withdrawal of United States troops from Lebanon and President Bill Clinton’s decision nearly a decade later to pull troops from Somalia. A unilateral pullout from Iraq would only confirm this analysis of American weakness among his jihadist allies.”
What Bergen and many others misunderstand is that this Kissinger-esqe thinking leads to Viet Nam-like wars of stubbornness for stubbornness’ sake. “Staying the course” is stupid when the course itself is stupid. A blunder is a blunder.
America’s leaders must learn once and for all that we must not commit even a few troops anywhere until we understand the Four Dimensions of Victory: (1) the realities on the ground, (2) the cultural and political context of those realities, (3) what resources will be required to achieve swift and overwhelming victory, and (4) what will be the larger, long term consequences of victory.
I call these the Four Dimensions of Victory because the term “dimensions” refers to the parameters required to describe the position and relevant characteristics of any object within a conceptual space. A military action takes place in a definable time and space, and can thus be viewed as an “object” occurring within the space of our shared planet.
America’s leaders failed to address any of these Four Dimensions before Reagan committed a tiny force in Lebanon in 1984, Clinton committed a tiny force in Somalia in 1993 or Bush committed a woefully inadequate force in 2003. That is why they all failed. And because withdrawal is part of any military campaign, and because the Four Dimensions of Victory were not properly analyzed prior to withdrawal of troops in Lebanon and Somalia, the consequences of those failures were to reinforce the perception of America as a paper tiger.
Remarkably, between the Defense Department, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the National Security Agency, America’s government has much of the data and the brains to analyze the Four Dimensions of Victory prior to any military entry or exit. Our leaders have simply not bothered collating them. Our leaders too often have lazy, undisciplined minds.
So withdrawal in Iraq might or might not reinforce the perception of America as a paper tiger – that depends on the wisdom of the withdrawal plan, which must be developed utilizing an analysis of the Four Dimensions of Victory. (We didn’t analyze and plan properly as we entered, so it is even more important that we analyze and plan properly as we exit.)
Clausewitz continually emphasized “strategy as the intelligent use of individual battles for the design of a sustainable campaign.” (Von Ghyczy, Clausewitz on Strategy) We must intelligently use a brilliant, well-conceived Iraq exit as part of an overall strategy for a sustainable campaign against world terrorism.
posted by DanZ @ 9:07 AM
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